Republican lawmakers voted in record numbers this year for a state budget, a stark change from years under complete Democratic control when all but a few routinely opposed what they called bloated budgets.

So what has changed? Republicans, especially House Speaker Frank McNulty, say this year lawmakers finally got it right and crafted an “honest and responsible” budget.

But with a few exceptions, the roughly $18 billion 2011-12 budget Republicans voted for is more similar than different to those that Democrat-controlled legislatures have written the past several years. Republicans control the House with a 33-32 majority, while Democrats hold a 20-15 majority in the Senate.

The spending plan lawmakers have approved, which includes $7 billion in general-fund spending, would impose a $227.5 million cut to K-12 education, almost as large as the $260 million cut enacted under Democrats last year. Gov. John Hickenlooper, a Democrat, had originally proposed a $332 million net reduction to K-12 schools, but a March revenue forecast allowed lawmakers to restore some funding.

Like budgets approved by Democrats, the 2011-12 plan also enacts cuts to higher education and certain Medicaid services.

And most other significant cuts in the budget, such as the closing of the Fort Lyon Correctional Facility, were proposed by either outgoing Gov. Bill Ritter, a Democrat, or Hickenlooper.

More GOP votes

The budget passed in the Democrat-led Senate on a 30-5 vote, with three of 15 Republicans and two of 20 Democrats voting no. In prior years, Democrats were lucky to get two GOP votes.

Meanwhile, the budget passed the House on a 50-14 vote, with no Republicans opposing it. In at least the four prior years, not more than a handful of House Republicans, and sometimes only two, voted for a budget under Democrats’ rule. This year was the first time McNulty, R-Highlands Ranch, had ever voted in favor of a budget.

“It doesn’t look to me like the budget is a whole lot different than it was last year,” said John Straayer, a political science professor at Colorado State University.

“The budget was created by the available revenue number and the constitutional requirement of balancing the budget,” Straayer said. “The Democrats and Republicans had no choice. They could play around a little bit on the margins, but the flex in discretion was almost completely absent.”

McNulty could not point to a specific spending cut that Republicans could claim as a victory for advocates of small government.

“From our perspective, we were never looking for a scalp to put on the wall,” he said. “What we’ve talked about is having an honest and responsible budget that respects taxpayers, that recognizes the effect government has on the ability of small business to create jobs, that provides a safety net to protect those Coloradans most in need and that respects the hard work of Colorado families who are out there making difficult decisions right now.”

For example, Republicans praised Hickenlooper’s proposal to nearly double the size of the state’s general fund reserve, costing more than $140 million. Many Democrats balked at the idea, but they went along as part of making a deal with Republicans.

And while Republicans say the budget “contains 750 fewer full- time positions,” as many as 676 were “phantom” posts that departments had been authorized for in recent years but had not filled, usually because there wasn’t funding. The elimination of the positions from the state list of total full-time positions was essentially a cleanup action.

In other words, no one lost their job, nor was money saved as a result of those positions being eliminated.

Still, McNulty said the move was about accountability.

“By eliminating those positions off the books, by wiping them from the books, we have increased the transparency and the honesty of the state budget,” he said.

GOP lawmakers initially pointed to $658 million in reduced total spending in the budget, but they backed away from that claim after it became clear $434 million of that was from one accounting change in the Department of Revenue. In prior years, budget analysts had always included the Powerball jackpot as part of the department’s appropriation, but they decided not to include it in the 2011-12 budget because the money isn’t discretionary and can’t be used any other way.

Republicans blasted Democrats last year for eliminating or suspending a number of tax breaks, exemptions and credits for businesses to generate more than $100 million to help balance the 2010-11 budget. This year, Republicans were successful in seeing that two sales-tax exemptions for businesses — one on agricultural products and another on downloaded and installed software — were restored. Those exemptions, which total somewhere under $30 million, were restored as part of the budget deal between Democrats and Republicans.

A boost to retailers

GOP lawmakers also negotiated a partial restoration of the “vendor fee,” the portion of state sales tax that retailers are allowed to keep to cover their costs of collecting the tax. The deal allows retailers to keep two-thirds of the fee, costing the state about $50 million.

“These are very real and substantive improvements that have been accomplished because Republicans have 33 votes in the state House of Representatives,” McNulty said.

The 2011-12 budget, Republicans said, “contains no new taxes.”

That may depend on whether their definition of new taxes has changed. Republicans previously have argued that eliminating a sales-tax exemption is a tax increase.

The budget deal includes an agreement that the suspension of a sales-tax exemption on cigarettes — which Republicans previously called a tax increase — be extended another two years. The extension, passed this month with support of eight House Republicans, including McNulty, would generate up to $27.3 million a year to help balance the budget.

On the other side of the aisle, just under half the Democrats in the House voted against the budget this year, many complaining about continued cuts to education while businesses were getting tax breaks restored.

Straayer said the budget votes are all about who’s in charge this year, not the numbers.

“The name of the game is credit-claiming and blame deflection,” he said.

Democrats Ed Perlmutter and Jared Polis have joined their Republican congressional colleagues in backing legislation that would allow the Bureau of Land Management to relocate it headquarters to the West, and possibly to Colorado.

Two conservative taxpayer advocacy groups filed suit Wednesday against new Denver campaign finance disclosure rules for issue advocacy committees that they say will violate the privacy rights of their donors.